University of Pennsylvania
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Departmental Papers (Classical Studies)
Classical Studies at Penn
1995
Review of James J. Clauss, The Best of the Argonauts:
The Redefinition of the Epic Hero in Book One of
Apollonius' Argonautica
Joseph Farrell
University of Pennsylvania, [email protected]
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Recommended Citation
Farrell, J. (1995). Review of James J. Clauss, The Best of the Argonauts: The Redefinition of the Epic Hero in Book One of Apollonius'
Argonautica. Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 6 (4), Retrieved from http://repository.upenn.edu/classics_papers/102
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Review of James J. Clauss, The Best of the Argonauts: The Redefinition of the
Epic Hero in Book One of Apollonius' Argonautica
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | Classics
This review is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/classics_papers/102
Bryn Mawr Classical Review 95.06.04
James J. Clauss, The Best of the Argonauts: The Redefinition of the
Epic Hero in Book One of Apollonius' Argonautica. Hellenistic Culture
and Society 10. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Pp.
xviii + 238. $35.00. ISBN 0­520­07925­6.
Reviewed by Joseph Farrell, University of Pennsylvania
([email protected]).
This monograph, "a thoroughly reconceived and rewritten version" of the author's
doctoral dissertation, addresses a question first posed by Homer and then taken up by
Apollonius: "Who is the best among the heroes?" (xi). It argues that Apollonius worked
through the problem by reworking texts from Homer on that in their various ways parse
the heroic code and the epic genre and suggest what meaning each may still have had in
Hellenistic culture.
The study's formal parameters ­­ it is a sequential analysis of the first book of the
Argonautica ­­ were chosen on the grounds that "it is at the conclusion of Book 1 that
Apollonius identifies Jason as the hero of the epic in contradistinction to the
quintessential archaic hero, Heracles" (13). Clauss thus follows a straightforward plan,
working his way through the book episode by episode and, where necessary, line by
line and word by word. His method involves a determined collection of verbal parallels
mainly with the texts of the Iliad and Odyssey, which parallels then become the chief
material from which an interpretation is built.
The author is fully aware of the limits within which he must work, both technical and
critical. In the former category, Clauss has to reckon with the fact that the text of
Apollonius' Homer was an unstable thing, available to us (as to Apollonius himself)
only through philological reconstruction; and, of course, we must reconstruct the text of
Apollonius as well before we can compare it to the version(s) of Homer that we
suppose were available to him. In the latter category, Clauss focuses on a single theme
in a single book of the poem as it develops through the medium of literary allusion.
This does not add up to a holistic reading of Apollonius' epic, but Clauss does not make
this claim; and by forgoing such a project, he registers a number of gains that are just as
valuable, while establishing certain interpretive parameters that future critics would be
wise to respect.
The eight main chapters all take the same basic shape: a brief introduction followed by
a structural analysis of the episode with which the chapter is concerned, followed in
turn by separate discussions of the episode's component parts. Only in Chapter 3 on the
departure from Iolcus (lines 234­316) does Clauss' argument depart significantly from
the order of Apollonius' narrative, the better to bring out (what Clauss convincingly
argues is) the episode's chiastic structure. Then Clauss investigates the Homeric
background onto which Apollonius' allusive language projects itself. In some cases,
this background is brightly illuminated by a ringing quotation that points unmistakably
to a particular Homeric model. For instance, Aeson's reaction to the departure of Jason,
as all commentators note, repeats that of Priam to the death of Hector (PATH\R
O)LOW=| U(PO\ GH/RAI / E)NTUPA\S E)N LEXE/ESSI KALUYA/MENOS
GOA/ASKEN Arg. 1.263­64; O(\ D' E)N ME/SSOISI GERAIO\S / E)NTUPA\S E)N
XLAI/NH| KEKALUMME/NOS Il. 24.162­63; see pp. 40­42). In other cases the poet
directs the reader to his model by means of the subtlest of gestures, chiefly by using
unusual Homeric diction (see e.g. pp. 41, 67, 70, 118, 145,188, to cite but a few
examples). Clauss' survey of this material appears to be comprehensive, but he has not
overloaded his argument with excessive detail or his notes with superfluous citations.
As a result, the book would be valuable simply as a judicious guide to previous work
on Apollonius' Homeric imitations.
It is inevitable when dealing with imitation of Homer, whose formulaic language
necessarily produces a wealth of similarities and possible cross­references within his
own text, and who was widely imitated by many poets before Apollonius joined the
fray, that the language of the Argonautica will on occasion resemble that of more than
one Homeric passage, and may even seem to indicate other sources as well. Clauss is
well aware of such occurrences and is scrupulous about calling the reader's attention to
them, but as a critic he regards them warily. His general procedure is not to complicate
matters, which means in practice normally arguing that "Apollonius seems to have his
eye chiefly on" only one passage at a time (43 n. 13; cf. 192 n. 26, et passim). This is
not to say that Clauss avoids the issues of allusive contaminatio (simultaneous
reference to different source­passages, e.g. 7­8, 183­88) or allusive cross­referencing
(imitation of a single source­passage at different points within an allusive work, e.g.
163 n. 32, 192 n. 26 193 n. 28 205 n. 55); nor is he unaware of other Apollonian
models (Hesiod, Pindar, Herodotus, tragedy, and, among contemporaries and, with due
attention to the Prioritaetsfragen, Callimachus, Aratus, and Theocritus). But Clauss's
main concern is certainly with Apollonius' individual references to Homer, which he
defines quite specifically. In the first place, he regards them as textual phenomena with
thematic import. In the second, they are local phenomena, by which I mean that they
involve specific Homeric and Apollonian loci rather than intertextual systems that
pervade the poems as a whole. And yet, in making this case Clauss shows that the
totality of Homeric epic is in a sense involved.
The lexical survey of Homeric "citations" is made the basis of a convincing thematic
analysis that focuses on the ways in which Apollonius measures his characters against
Homeric prototypes and finds them, shall we say, heroically challenged. Their
shortcomings include, but are not confined to, those that concern conventional or
obviously heroic traits. Jason is no Achilles, nor is he an Odysseus or a Hector. Indeed,
Apollonius measures his characters against a heroic ideal that no single Homeric
character could meet, either. If Jason is no Achilles, then neither is Hector, and vice
versa; but in Jason's case a lack of martial prowess is not made good by extra emphasis
on family values. In his above mentioned analysis of the hero's leavetaking, for
instance, Clauss compares Jason to Hector, "the quintessential KHDEMONEU/S," and
finds "Jason and his family ... to be a weak, shallow, and self­absorbed group, totally
unheroic in stature" (p. 56). Apollonius is relentless in exposing his hero's
shortcomings, as Clauss' analysis makes crystal clear: it is almost painful to witness the
spectacle in which Jason is compared to previous heroes in a succession of allusive
contests that he can only lose. Nevertheless, the cumulative effect of this intertextual
agon is to establish Jason as the best of the Argonauts, particularly in contrast to the
poem's most obvious symbol of conventional heroism, Heracles ­­ in Clauss' words, "a
disquieting but inevitable conclusion" (13).
If the book has a fault, it is perhaps a bit too reserved both in its methods and in its
willingness to push the interpretive envelope. Emphasis on verbal imitation enables
Clauss to take full advantage of the abundant efforts primarily of continental
scholarship to investigate Apollonius' use of Homeric hapax and dis legomena and
other linguistic rarities, work which Clauss has been able to supplement with his own
lexical research using the computerized TLG database and Ibycus search program.
Such extensive evidence of an almost material character provides a very secure
foundation for his thematic interpretation. At times, however, I believe Clauss is more
cautious than he needs to be. At 1284­95, for instance, when Telamon quarrels with
Jason over the loss of Heracles, Clauss (following the commentaries of Mooney and
Ardizzoni and Campbell's collection of parallel passages) adduces a quotation from
Iliad 18: Telamon's reaction to the loss of Heracles is thus derived from Achilles'
reaction to the news of Patroclus' death. But Telamon's words are spoken in a quarrel
with Jason. In a note (201 n. 50) Clauss cites Richard Hunter's excellent suggestion that
the argument is modeled in part on the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon in
Iliad 1, but declines to follow Hunter on the grounds that there are "no discernible
textual points of contact" between the two passages. Clauss admits, however, "that the
resolution of the Argonautic argument looks to that of the Iliadic" and exploits this
awareness in his ensuing analysis. Thus to exclude the quarrel motif itself from
consideration strikes me as an excessively strict application of a basically sound
method. And in view of the fact that the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon,
like that between Telamon and Jason, concerns the same basic question ­­ "Who is the
best of the Achaeans/Argonauts?" i.e., the very theme of Clauss' book ­­ the decision to
exclude the Iliadic passage from consideration goes beyond caution and begins to look
like downright self­abnegation. I would have preferred to see what Clauss might have
done with this juicy morsel instead of leaving it to others.
The upshot of Clauss' interpretation ­­ that Apollonius' ringing of the changes on
Homer's conception of the epic hero ushers in a new paradigm for a new age, one that
is however full of "trenchant irony" in presenting the hero not as "a totally self­
sufficient man of godlike strength" but rather "a totally dependent man of limited
skills" (211) ­­ is hardly unprecedented (nor does Clauss claim that it is or fail to
acknowledge his forerunners). The Best of the Argonauts does, however, offer an
exemplary demonstration of the intimate and necessary connection between
philological research and literary interpretation. Clauss' enviable command of
Apollonius text, his deep understanding of the habits of mind that enabled the
Alexandrian scholar/poets to create such "curious and demanding" (1) poetry, have
enabled him to produce a study that all students of the Argonautica will do well to
consult.